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Kay's Underground
The Train When Kay's mind first organized her personalities into an underground (Subway to us Yankees) system, there was a confusing web of different connections and disorder. The hostile personalities were often housed next to the most vulnerable ones and would prey upon them viciously, further traumatizing Kay's altered fractured identity. Dr. Steve Dayton used a drug to attune his mind with Kay's and through the course of many months helped corral various personas in eight stations, organizing them based on their similarities, and then blocked off the tunnels to the other, now empty, lines and stations. Since that happened, Kay's "train of thought" has run the track built for it, stopping regularly to shuttle the different resident personas and mental processes of Kay's mind to the different stations as needed. The train is piloted by the brave Driver 8, who goes from station to station, making scheduled stops. The most dominant persona on the train at any time is the persona which controls Kay's physical body and whichever station the dominant persona calls home determines the manifestation which Kay's meta-gene exerts. Driver 8 is not particularly dominant, as she was never meant to be a personality only a mental process which Dr. Dayton created to pilot the train. As such, Driver 8 is almost never in control of Kay's body except when the train is empty or only shuttling the weakest of personalities, such as the inner children. Due to Dr. Dayton's insistence that Jane is the most stable and practical of personalities in Kay's mind, Driver 8 starts every morning by leaving Pepper Station to collect Jane from Furness Road. Jane is then expected to spend her waking hours on the train, though Jane's dominance allows her to entertain herself in the real world, she is seldom able to completely focus on the real world as she must exert her control of the train as well, as other personas often want Jane's seat. This requires Jane to split her attention between the real and the cerebral and occasionally Driver 8 has to stop the train to assist Jane in losing control to a belligerent passenger. Of course, when the train stops unexpectedly, so does Kay... whether passing out without warning, staring off into the distance, or wandering off in a mindless shuffle. All stations must be visited at some point during the day to keep Kay's mind from deteriorating. This means at least twice a day, they reach the end of the line, at Last Straw and Challis Palace. During these stops, Driver 8 needs to leave her seat at the controls, cross the cars, and take over the controls at the opposite end of the train. While this is usually a simple chore at Challis Palace, it is a very different undertaking at Last Straw. When such a stop is performed, Driver 8 performs a mad sprint while Jane acts as a lookout for any approaching hostile personas. If Jane needs a break or to run an errand, Jane can get off at another station during its scheduled stops. While at a station, the last dominant persona retains control until the train starts running again. While Driver 8 can delay the train for a short time, the personas at other stations often become restless if the train is late. The more restless the personas, the more dangerous the rest of Jane and Driver 8's day becomes. If Jane's friends require a specific persona or manifestation, Jane can direct Driver 8 to a specific station. Once there, Jane can disembark the train and search the station to find that persona and hopefully convince them to take a ride. At least two other Doom Patrollers have been in the Underground: Steve Dayton and Cliff Steele. The Line Challis Palace The Inner Children, including Kay's original personality, live in Challis Palace. The station morphs into a large mansion as you walk further from the tracks. Inside the different rooms are different personas, all children. Some just play games, some are jumbled and fragmented personalities who just relive the same experiences like a broken record due to being severely abused by Daddy before Dr. Dayton created the more isolated stations for the Underground. Farthing Gardens Farthing Gardens is where the personas created as coping mechanisms and therapeutic techniques dwell. As you walk away from the tracks here, the ceiling turns to a blue sky, the concrete floor becomes grass, and the white bricks to red brick walls with rose bushes and flower beds. This is how Kay remembers her time in Arkham Asylum (before it became strictly for the criminally insane), where she spent much time in the yard, painting and sitting on park benches. The personas here are dressed in hospital gowns or pajamas and shuffle about in different states of awareness. Pepper Station Pepper Station looks like a large central station, complete with schedules, ticket booths, lockers for property (or repressed memories), and so forth. The tracks here are on a large wheel that can spin the track. Though usually very bustling, the personas here are usually not the residents as only Driver 8, the Pointman, and the Engineer dwell here... Well, them, and Pepper's Ghost (formerly known as Driver 7, before one of the hostile personas got a hold of her and threw her down the Gap). Radley College Radley College is where Kay's intellect and knowledge are kept. The personas here dress in lab coats, mortarboards, tweed jackets, or school girl uniforms. As you stroll from the tracks, the station becomes a campus quad, with a library, dorms, laboratories, classrooms, and a bell tower. This also represents Kay's desire to have furthered her education. Furness Street Furness Street looks particularly familiar once you walk up the stairs to find the entrance to this station is across the street from Udderly Delicious, or Jane's mental recreation of it. To take a stroll on Furness Street looks almost as if you are walking down Danny the Street. This stop is where Jane calls home and thus it is modeled where she feels most safe. Though only a few personas live there, Flit is usually found dancing in the cabaret theater and the Snow Queen has claimed the Doom Patrol's Mansion as her own castle, there are also mental representations of people Jane has met in real life walking the streets. Jane herself sleeps in an apartment above Udderly Delicious. Fugue District Fugue District's station is an elevated track built over a red light district. Under the tracks' pylons, personas strut their stuff and every desire, inappropriate thought, or intimate moment Kay has ever had are on display whether in the display window of a questionable video store, staged by mannequins in a lingerie shop, or on the pages of dirty magazines on the newsstands. This is where Scarlet Harlot, Baby Harlot, Sex Bomb, and others call home. Silvo Cathedral After another pass through Pepper Station, the next stop is Silvo Cathedral. This is where Kay keeps the single worst memory. Strolling from the station, the environment becomes a run-down part of a non-specific city amid a cold dusk during daylight hours and a pitch-black night when the sun goes down. The personas here live in tenements which surround a tall and dark cathedral which is in bad state of decay. A nun with a chainsaw stands guard at the door of the cathedral preventing any except Mama Pentecost into the cathedral. The personas here are rarely seen on the street and when they are, they are not friendly, often warning you to get out of here. Due to the proximity of the next stop, it is not uncommon to see one of the hostile personas creeping about here in its darkest hours, preying upon any persona stupid enough to be outdoors at such a time, where they drag them to the nearby "Gap", an endless gorge-sized recreation of the well which Kay's father tried to drown her in. Though personas usually end up returning from the Gap eventually, they are rarely ever the same again. It should be noted though that the hostile personalities generally leave the nun alone. Even those personas are afraid to confront what is inside the cathedral. Last Straw Lastly, there is the Last Straw. Its station is in ruins. Large fields of shoulder height wheat and weeds which creep up around the ruins and in the distance are different dark, thorny woods and a recreation of a Kay's childhood trailer home, parked in the midst of the fields. Caution to those that try to navigate this station, the fields are home to such horrors as Jack Straw, his sister Jill-in-Irons, Sun Daddy, No One, Black Annis, Flaming Katy, the Hammerhead, and Bizzie Lizzie Borden. And should one manage to avoid all them, the persona of Daddy is all that awaits at the edges of Kay's mind. If Daddy sees those unfamiliar to him, he assumes them to be the ones who took Kay from him. When thus angered, Daddy has a bad habit of marching down the tracks in search of his daughter. The Personas People who only think they know Kay Challis often mistakenly think she only has three to five personalities. Some hear she has eight manifestations and incorrectly assume manifestations and personalities to be the same thing. This is not the case. Kay's personalities are the result of her fractured psyche. Though some of these are still undiscovered, others have been lost to the well and reinvented when stimuli imparts itself on a well-washed personality, but it is said that Kay has 64 personalities, no more and no less. While a persona can be destroyed or altered through trauma, such as at the hands of a predator or by being submerged in the well, Mama Pentecost says that the essence of the personalities can never be destroyed and will always reform. Dayton's own studies have been unable to prove otherwise. The manifestations Kay undergoes are the result of her meta-gene interpreting the impulses of these personalities. When her meta-gene first ignited, Kay was constantly shifting personalities and every personality came with a new manifestation. This constant transformation nearly killed Kay through exertion and shock, but Dayton helped her create a more organized Underground that built 'stations' or clusters around the most stable manifestations. They then relocated the personalities to "live" in these eight stations while sealing off all the others. Challis Palace * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Kay Challis ** K-5: The original Kay Challis. Hasn't been in control since her body was five years old.When she awakes, she leaves the Palace and wanders the tunnels, looking for her mother. As she never wanders far from the stations, the last chore of most nights for Jane and Driver 8 is to find which station K-5 has wandered into to find a bench to sleep on. 8 and Jane then take her back to the Palace and tuck her in for the night in her bedroom. ** Baby Doll: A naive persona that believes everything is lovely. She may occasionally ride the train, singing and dancing the whole time, but will become frantic and throw a fit if asked to leave the train at anywhere but the Palace. She will leave at Furness Street if her friend Jane stays with her. ** Merry: A silly persona that giggles and makes a fool of herself for others' entertainment. Unable to talk or make any sound other than different degree of laughter, she often entertains the children at the Palace, but can also be found wandering the other stations where she pulls pranks and antagonizes the more serious personas. A complete fool, Merry has more than once sought to amuse the "joyless" personas of Last Straw, which usually results in Merry being tortured for amusement and later cast down the well of suffering. Though she usually returns from the well more or the same as when she went in, it begs the question how often has she been down the well and what she was like before she was first cast down the well? ** Butterfly Baby: A persona that lives in the Palace's "butterfly" room and never leaves it. She cries and cries endlessly over the sight of the dead pinned butterflies mounted on the walls of her room. If touched, she screams and writhes in pain. If any try to communicate with her, she begins to repeatedly stab herself with the same pins used to mount the butterflies. She is best left alone. ** Shapeless Children: The many other personas of the Palace, only partially constructed or stuck in a loop, repeating the same behavior and events in the various rooms they haunt. Others roam the halls of the Palace or even use the tunnels relocate to other parts of the Underground, often repeatedly heard crying out "Daddy, don't do it" in spectral moans and ethereal whispers. It is possible these are merely memories or imaginary figures and not actual personalities. Farthing Gardens * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Penny Farthing ** The Anglophile: A stuttering persona that speaks with an English accent as she is obsessed with English pop culture. She is the architect of the first Underground and the first resident of the Gardens. She spends her time in the Garden riding her bike. ** Hangman's Beautiful Daughter: A persona obsessed with painting death in its many forms. Usually found in the Garden painting, even when it is raining. ** Rain Brain: A persona that wanders the Garden uttering shorts phrases and jumbled up mumbling. She can often be seen riding the train to and from Radley College where reads books to find new passages to recite. ** Pretty Polly: A persona that is fond of hats, thinking they make her "Oh so pretty". She doesn't have much else to talk about. ** The Staff: Personas that wear lab coats and believe themselves to be doctors, nurses, and orderlies at the Gardens. It is unclear if these are imaginary residents, mental processes, or actual personalities. Pepper Station * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Jeann Pepper ** Pepper's Ghost: Once known as Jeann Pepper, the persona which the central station was built around, she was the first persona that Steve Dayton thought good enough to drive the train. And she was, until she was captured by Jack Straw and not seen for years, only having recently returned as the ghost that haunts her former home. ** Driver 8: A persona currently tasked with driving the train. She was created by Dayton and, as a less-than-natural creation, she has little power to take control of Kay's body. But on the plus side, she is free of the many neuroses that affect Kay's other personas, allowing her to do her job quite well. ** Pointman: A persona that identifies as male. Runs the Station from his command post. Often communicating with Driver 8 by radio. He used to be the third driver, until Black Annis tore him apart and threw him down the well. Now he refuses to ever return to Last Straw, preventing him from driving the train's circuit. ** Engineer: Also known as "Ginee", the Engineer is the train's mechanic and makes sure it is repaired every night while Kay's body sleeps. Like the Pointman, Ginee is a former driver, the fifth to be precise. After Ginee was captured by Jill-in-Irons, she was replaced by Driver 6. She was still missing when a seventh driver was needed and only escaped her captor when Driver 8, Crazy Jane, and Cliff Steele rescued her. Unlike Pointman, Ginee longs to return to the controls. ** Siggy: A strange persona that seems to have no home, but is found most frequently at Pepper Station. She never wanders beyond the train car and the various stations. She sleeps on the train but will only ride the train to the next station. Once there she gets off and sits at the nearest bench to resume studying some puzzle box she always carries on her but has never solved. The next time the train stops at her station, she'll get back on the train and resume this cycle. She only breaks from her pattern when dropped off at the Last Stop where she becomes incredibly talkative with Flaming Katy and is content to remain there until the next time the train returns. ** The Travelers: Personas that hustle about the station and act like the typical coming and going crowds in an urban environment. These are unlikely to be actual personalities, only conjured beings used to populate the station in Kay's subconscious mind. Radley College * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Liza Radley ** Normal Nancy: Nancy is a rather "normal" girl, the personification of Kay's desire to go to college and live a normal life when this personality first manifested. The other personas keep their distance from Nancy, uncertain of how to react to her normalcy. Dr. Dayton considered her an ideal candidate to be trained as a driver, temporarily making her the fourth driver, but her constant absence from the College destabilized the station, requiring her to return her rather normal routine of living out Kay's school days' fantasies. ** Lady Purple: This is the persona that's usually in control when Kay manifests as "Liza". She is very blunt and to the point, as well as very intelligent. When not exerted her dominance on the train, she is usually found in the back of the library wishing to be left alone. ** The Secretary: The college secretary. Neat and orderly, rarely showing much emotion, at least during the day. She carries a clipboard when away from her desk. When not found at the college, she can be found in other stations running errands for "the boss" or in the District where she moonlights as a dominatrix. ** Spinning Jenny: A perpetually absent-minded student prone to panic attacks. ** The Alumni: Personas that go about the College and act like the parts of students, teachers, and administrators. Most are likely just mental creations populating the college. Furness Street * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Sarah "Jane" Furness ** Crazy Jane: Though she created the Station, Jane is rarely present in her creation, often forced to ride the train most of her waking hours. She has her share of quirks, and has a strange view of reality, but she means well. In the Underground, she is fearless, but knows enough to choose her battles wisely. ** Snow Queen: A stable, if authoritative figure. She believes herself to be a queen and expects such treatment. ** Flit: A persona obsessed with '80s culture and music. Flit does not seem to need to use the train as she seems able to come and go throughout the Underground, including the seal off parts, at the speed of thought. Still, she often drops in on the train to visit with Jane or give Jane a break. She has a limited attention span however and often abandons even the most crucial tasks when something else distracts her. ** The Family: False personas created to echo the residents of Danny the Street and populate Furness Street. Fugue District * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Lucy Fugue ** Skeleton-in-the-Closet: A mysterious persona that has been in the District since its creation, even possibly its first resident. As her name suggests, she lives in a broom closet of one of the shops, only coming out to collect materials or other personas to take back to her closet and disappear for hours, days, or even weeks. ** Scarlet Harlot: A rambunctious, flirtatious, and downright nasty persona with only one thing on her mind. She is the most dominant of personas from the District. Though she prefers flirting with Cliff when she is in control, if bored, she will seek out other partners looking for a good time. ** Baby Harlot: A persona very similar to Scarlet, but tends to play up a 'Lolita' personality when she attempts to seduce others. When she has assumed control, she has had a significant crush on Larry Trainor and Steve Dayton, though both have rejected her advances. ** Sex Bomb: A persona obsessed with sex and constantly looking for willing partners to share in her "explosion". ** Driller Bill: A persona who lives in the District but spends most of her waking hours in the tunnels, obsessed with digging through the sealed off tunnels to seek out some 'treasure'. Usually is scared off by a roaming predator before she makes any significant progress. ** Red Dress: A persona of Kay who wears a red dress. She is rather enigmatic as she only giggles and skips about the station. If she is on the train, she often eyes Jane's seat as if she plans to take it, but has never yet tried. When Jane has offered it to her, out of curiosity, Red Dress only giggled and skipped away at the next stop. ** The Creeps: False personas that seek out or act upon Kay's internal perversions, desires, intimate thoughts, dirty secrets, and other sordid matters. Silvo Cathedral * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Miranda Silvo ** Innocence: The original occupant of the Station and who has not been seen since the Cathedral was erected. ** Mama Pentecost: The "Mayor" of the Station, Mama Pentecost is one of the most dominant personas in the Underground. She has been known able to stand against the most ferocious hostile personas but spends most of her time in the Cathedral. When she is seen roaming the Station, she usually is reading a book or doing a crossword puzzle. ** Stigmata: A persona who once ventured into the Cathedral and now is usually found trembling in an alley between two tenements, her hands and eyes bleeding endlessly. She regularly fails to make it inside at nightfall and has gone down the wall more times than she can recall. ** Blood-of-the-Lamb: Similar to Stigmata, this persona of Kay emerged from the well years ago covered in blood and has been unable to get clean ever since. Which is horrible for her, as she is a hemophobic. Other than that, though, she seems to be rather normal. ** Sin-Eater: A persona with masochistic tendencies and loves pain. Jane has found her as a useful one to put in control when Kay's body is being tortured. ** Sylvia: A claustrophobic persona that escaped from the Garden long ago and now is kept at the Cathedral. She often runs down the track in an attempt to reach the open fields at the end of the line. She has achieved her goal a few times, but paid the price for it every time. ** Nun: The nameless nun with the chainsaw. She's hard to miss. Though she is a full personality, she has never exerted control. Instead she is content to stand guard in front of the Cathedral. She seems to be the only personality that most of the predators avoid, with the exception of Daddy. ** Kit W'the Canstick: A persona of Kay who holds a candle for the nun during the night to spot intruders, but always drops the candle and runs at the first sign of trouble. ** The Lost: The other residents of the Cathedral. Some are fractured personalities who have recently climbed out of the well but have yet to regain their identity, others are wayward thoughts and shattered dreams that have nowhere else to call home. Last Straw * Identity of Meta-Manifestation: Jack Straw ** Living Scarecrow: The original occupant of the Last Stop, created from the memory of Kay hiding in a cornfield from her father, but stumbling upon the scarecrow in the night. Her scream alerted her father where she was hiding and she never forgave the scarecrow for its part in that. Kay's hatred for this inanimate object gave it life in her mind where it became a fully-fleshed personality that hunts other personalities that wander into its fields. This Scarecrow often mistakenly thinks he is Jack Straw and most residents of the Underground identify him as such. ** Sun Daddy: A frightening version of Kay's father, who in the mindscape has had his head replaced with a burning star. This monstrous persona is easily avoided but not easily defeated. Created from a suppressed memory from Kay seeing a passing glimpse of her father after he was shot to death by Special Agent Dayton. She saw the blood oozing out the back of his gunshot head and thought it reminded her of the halo of the sun, which she often colored red as a child. ** No One: A shadowed simulacrum of an orderly from Arkham. When Dayton found bruises on Kay, he asked who did this to her and she replied "No One", giving power to another abuser by refusing to name them. No One stalks the fields in silence with no face and nothing to ask of his victims except "Who did this to you?" before he tortures them. ** Black Annis: Kay's first attempt to fight back against an attacker with a knife birthed Black Annis, a warped reflection of Kay with her fingers replaced with knives. Though she is a predator herself, she dwells in the woods beyond the fields and will occasionally leave her dwelling to attempt to rescue a foolish persona from one of the other predators, but when she fails to act in time, she does not shed a tear. ** Flaming Katy: Kay's father once put a cigarette on Kay's neck. The repressed trauma of this birthed Flaming Katy who would later manifest years later as a personality obsessed with fire. She can be found at the ruins of the station, usually playing with a fire contained inside an old oil drum. She is neither predator nor prey. As long as she stays near the fire, the predators leave her and any with her alone. ** Weird Sisters: These three personalities wear rags and live under the ruins of the old station. They sleep during the day but are known to creep into the tunnels when Kay is sleeping. Sometimes they have warned stations or wayward personas of an approaching predator and other times, they merely seek out a vantage point to get a good view. They are always together and if you see one stalking a tunnel, the other two are always not far. They appear to be scavengers, collecting interesting memories and taking them back to their den. ** Jill-In-Irons: A corrupted personality that once was a driver of the train. Her torture at the hands of the Scarecrow made her his sister. She seeks out other personas and puts them in chains, where she tortures them in hopes of creating a new sister. ** Hammerhead: This persona is the product of one of Kay's many abuses, specifically when she was nearly killed by her father when he angrily threw a ball-peen hammer at her head. Though the real Kay had a severe concussion, this personality bears a much more exaggerated wound in the mindscape: a perpetually fractured skull, complete with gaping wound. Carrying a sledgehammer, Hammerhead roams the fields attacking any she comes across. ** Bizzie Lizzie Borden: A persona that carries an axe and stalks Daddy, often perched atop his domicile. She never speaks, though she occasionally snickers. She will run away if her presence seems to be noted by Daddy or any other predator in the fields. Daddy seems unaware of her existence. Dayton suspects she represents Kay's dark impulses to murder her father but never had the chance to act on this, thus denying Lizzie the same opportunity. ** Daddy: The real Jack Straw, as that is noted as being the name of Kay's father and primary abuser, though Kay and all of her personalities refused to acknowledge him as anything other than "Daddy". This personality appears in the mindscape as the festering corpse of Kay's father, bloated and ugly. He is larger in the mindscape than he was in life and every year he grows larger based on Kay's only memories of him being when she was a tiny child.A Guide to Kay's Underground Trivia and Notes Trivia * Kay created the look of the Underground based on the network of train tunnels she saw on television growing up across the pond. Links and References * Appearances of Kay's Underground * Location Gallery: Kay's Underground Category:Locations